Kategorie: News
Cigarettes, bottle caps & more
On 1 September 2024, a 1.5-kilometre stretch along the Isar river in Munich brought around 30 kilograms of rubbish to light – mainly bottle caps, cigarette butts, plastic and beer bottles. This is the sobering result of a clean-up campaign.
The initiators of the Isar Clean-Up are: Society for the Rescue of Dolphins e.V. (GRD), Voice of the Seas and ColorSwell. Around 20 helpers took part in the campaign, led by GRD chairman Sigmar Solbach, in midsummer temperatures. The 2.4 kilograms of cigarette filters collected alone would have had the potential to contaminate around 700,000 litres of groundwater.
Stunned by the sheer amount of rubbish
The eastern bank of the Isar between the Wittelsbacher bridge and the cultural beach on the Cornelius bridge is free of rubbish – at least until cigarette butts, bottle caps, PET bottles, barbecue cutlery or plastic bags are carelessly left behind again. Or until beer bottles are broken again and bathers or dogs are seriously injured by the countless glass splinters lying around.
The numbers from the clean-up campaign by GRD, Voice of the Seas and ColorSwell are astounding: in addition to 13 kilograms of ‘classic’ rubbish, dozens of bottles were found along the shore – including deposit bottles that can be exchanged for cash at beverage stores. The volunteers also collected 13 kilograms of bottle caps – that's the equivalent of 5,900 bottle caps that had been carelessly discarded on the pebble beach or in the bushes after being opened. But it wasn't just the bottle caps that were collected separately during the Isar Clean Up; cigarette butts were too. The result: 2.4 kilograms over a distance of 1,500 metres. Since a single cigarette filter can contaminate up to 60 litres of groundwater, the 12,000 cigarette butts collected, which contain toxins such as arsenic, lead and cadmium, could have polluted around 700,000 litres of water or negatively affected plant growth.
Environmental impact of cigarette butts
The cigarette butts collected by the Isar will soon be recycled by TobaCycle, a partner of GRD based in Cologne. The company first removes all toxins and then processes the butts into an injection-mouldable granulate that is then used to manufacture plastic products such as pocket ashtrays or waste bins. Generally speaking, our environment would benefit greatly if cigarette butts, bottle caps and other (plastic) waste were not carelessly discarded, but properly disposed of in rubbish bins. Garbage not only pollutes our landscape, but also harms wildlife: from the Isar River, plastic parts reach the Black Sea faster than you think via the Danube and can endanger the dolphin populations and all other sea creatures there.
THANKS
The entire GRD team would like to express their heartfelt thanks to the many volunteers and supporters of the Munich diving community.
A big thank you also goes to the organisers of the Kulturstrand, who provided all the rubbish collectors with free drinks at the end of the event. We at Taucher.Net would also like to express our sincere thanks to GRD and all participants for this great event.
Further information:
GRD Society for the Rescue of Dolphins e.V.
ColorSwell
Voice of the seas
TobaCycle